40,000 Wii U Consoles Sold In 48 Hours In UK

This past weekend was an important weekend for Nintendo as we saw the launch of their next generation gaming console within the United Kingdom. Known as the Wii U, this console is the refreshed model of the highly popular Nintendo Wii and like all products, the company had high hopes that this console would establish its own loyal following.

With the launch weekend behind us and with Nintendo having a day to tally the numbers, we can now report that the company saw sales of 40,000 units in its first weekend. The device officially went on sale this past Friday and it took 48 hours before they were out of inventory. It is somewhat of a challenge to say just how successful their launch was as Microsoft didn’t release any similar numbers regarding their Xbox 360. However, when we look at the 2007 launch of the PlayStation 3, we see that Sony had sales of approximately 165,000 units. Although Nintendo falls well short of this mark, it’s believed that one of the issues that they faced was a lack on inventory on hand. Analysts believe that the company would have sold more units if they had more supplies available. Nintendo is expected to address this issue by making more units available on the UK High Street, but customers may have to wait until 2013 before Nintendo can ramp up production to meet full demand.